it-tieqa żerqa

We had seen this mock-up of a steel architectural truss abutting a Maltese cliff face circulating around the internet for a week but failed to realise that the idea was proffered to repair a famous natural landmark and tourist attraction along the coast outside of Gozo.
The Azure Window (also known as the Dwerjra Window) was a limestone pillar with a stone archway over the sea that collapsed in March 2017 following a violent storm but had been under threat for some time over erosion and increased visitor traffic. In addition to its appearance in Game of Thrones, the window was also featured in the original Clash of the Titans and the Kevin Reynold version of The Count of Monte Cristo, with its last cameo in the cliff-diving Hugo Boss apparel advertising campaign.

dedodedo

At the recommendation of Miss Cellania, we learn that there is much more to Hampsterdance than we had otherwise appreciated. With memes and virality, we’re all audience and authors both but the quirky little website that seeded internet culture and its norms of communication has a specific attribution. CBC Arts correspondent Leah Collins plums the midst of time and takes us back to 1998, to a world before social media when GeoCities and personal and prestige websites dominated and gives us an anecdotal and oral history of the project and its unexpected legacy.

hiobsbotschaft

Without much notice but definitely a slight, the Trump administration downgraded the diplomatic status of the European Union from member state to international organisation. The US State Department having failed to notify the EU of this change, the official reaction is still pending and only came to light inadvertently when the ambassador of the Washington mission did not make the cut for invited guests for the state funeral of George H W Bush. The supranational bloc was elevated back in September of 2016 after lengthy negotiations with the Obama administration.

acrostic or minibus appropriations

As the partial shutdown of the US government creeps into its third week, furloughed and exempted (working for delayed pay) staff at the National Weather Service’s Anchorage, Alaska bureau managed to embed a desperate plea in the forecast discussion.
One cannot expect to essentially close one quarter of the federal government without some nasty consequences down-stream and knock-on effects for departments that are open. Aside from rubbishing national parks, the workers and their families held kept in suspense, the air traffic controllers and screeners working without compensation (whoever thought we would be sharing a cup of kindness for the Transportation Security Administration), the research not being conducted and the tax statements not being processed (plus a litany of other thing not being done), there’s real dangers to public safety just being barely kept at bay by the dedication of a few.

this is not america

Via Boing Boing, comedian and musician (and frequent contributor to Quite Interesting) Bill Bailey gave an entertaining and informative presentation on the differences between major and minor keys and how the tonic tensions and resolutions affect the character of the tune being played. His rendition of the Star Spangled Banner (beginning at 2:02, previously) takes on a wholly different dynamic and indeed comes across a bit Russian.

waxing and waning

The design collective Whyixd has installed an ensemble of whirling LEDs to form a kinetic sculpture on the campus of National Chiao Tung University that illuminates the sky and delivers passers-by with a subjective experience of the lunar phases. Named like a bit of open-ended code, the project, “#define Moon_,” acknowledges that the perspective is unique for each viewer and something to take umbrage with, especially in light of the revival of the Space Race.